The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - October 12, 2023


Episode 119 LIVE: Speaker for Hire – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz


Episode Stats

Length

26 minutes

Words per Minute

174.75435

Word Count

4,630

Sentence Count

2

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

The House of Representatives has a new speaker, a new majority leader, and a new generation of candidates to choose from the field of potential candidates for speaker. In this episode of the live stream from Room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building in the capitol complex in Washington, D.C., we discuss the results of the primary election, the candidates, and the prospects.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 matt gates the biggest firebrand inside of the house of representatives you're not taking matt
00:00:08.420 gates off the board okay because matt gates is an american patriot and matt gates is an american
00:00:13.740 hero we will not continue to allow the uniparty to run this town without a fight i want to thank
00:00:20.900 you matt gates for holding the line matt gates is a courageous man if we had hundreds of matt gates
00:00:28.340 in dc the country turns around it's that simple he's so tough he's so strong he's smart and he
00:00:35.080 loves this country matt gates it is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you
00:00:42.900 we will save america it's choose your fighter time send in the firebrands
00:00:48.660 it's important just for the world to show that our democracy is working
00:00:58.240 that is thriving i think what matt gates and these seven nihilists did was a total disgrace
00:01:03.260 four percent of the conference overturned the will of 96 percent of the conference to
00:01:07.660 fire a speaker for what doing his job um if matt gates had his way we would be not only in a
00:01:13.780 defunctional congress right now but we'd be in a government shutdown so i think it's disgraceful
00:01:17.960 what these people did um but we have to move on we have to elect a new speaker we got to show that
00:01:22.900 we can walk and chew gum as a country at the same time govern um and give our allies what they need in
00:01:27.520 this very very pressing time for them a nihilist i think you meant nihilist that was former failed
00:01:37.000 house speaker paul ryan quite up in arms over the fact that we are making changes to washington dc
00:01:43.260 sometimes you got to break a few eggs to make an omelet and that's what we're doing right now i'm
00:01:48.520 going to bring you inside the latest discussions about the candidates the prospects how this is all
00:01:54.120 unfolding thanks for joining me we are live broadcasting out of room 2021 of the rayburn
00:01:59.440 house office building here in the capitol complex in washington dc and i'm going to start our
00:02:04.840 discussion uh just by totally disclaiming that what you have seen from me in vacating mccarthy
00:02:10.480 and working to get the best conservative in position to win uh is not a consequence of my own desire
00:02:17.360 to have house leadership or to move up or to get a new title or the new corner office and while some
00:02:24.220 online have been suggesting that maybe i should be the candidate for speaker i can assure you that that
00:02:29.480 is not the direction this is going go ahead and put up the tweet eric spracklin puts says i've said
00:02:35.760 it before and i'll say it again matt gates for house speaker so there are a few problems with that
00:02:41.440 first uh by virtue of removing mccarthy it does create some bad will among the people who were
00:02:48.700 his allies and also his political benefactors the way mccarthy accumulated power was by raising
00:02:56.180 hundreds of millions of dollars in special interest money and then redistributing that money to people in
00:03:02.140 exchange for loyalty and while that doesn't create a durable political structure as we saw it certainly can
00:03:09.700 create resentment if you take away the goose that's laying the golden eggs for some of these folks even
00:03:15.040 if that money is ill gotten from the standards that i hold that we shouldn't be raising money from
00:03:20.120 lobbyists and PACs and special interests who want to influence the decisions here in washington so that
00:03:26.900 the needs of the american people are subjugated and for holding that viewpoint i have not gained a ton of
00:03:33.580 friends in this town the la times observing matt gates is widely hated in congress doesn't bother me
00:03:40.960 too much he was able to oust kevin mccarthy anyway both of those things may very well be true so i think
00:03:47.660 we can um very likely dispense with the notion that i have a candidacy or a prospect to be speaker of the
00:03:54.100 house so sorry to eric uh who put out that very kind tweet but i think that also says something about
00:04:00.360 the makeup of the republican conference we need more america first congressmen we have far too many
00:04:07.720 people here that are vestiges of a republican party of yesteryear that does not reflect the dynamism and
00:04:14.960 energy and realignment that a lot of our most enthusiastic activists and supporters reflect in how they
00:04:23.580 approach politics how they think about a lot of these things in a lot of ways the republican conference
00:04:28.940 here in washington dc in the house of representatives is not a leading indicator of where the republican
00:04:34.920 party is it's a lagging indicator the leading indicator is really the sentiment that we draw from
00:04:40.120 folks whether they're commenting right now on our live stream engaging with us on the phone in the mail
00:04:46.120 digitally and the american people want to see washington change that is coming through representatives are
00:04:54.360 hearing that message as we engage in this contest for speaker but for people who hold views like me
00:05:00.920 to have a greater say in washington dc it is not ambition that is the essential ingredient it is a
00:05:07.980 constituency of the membership and on any given day sometimes it's four five eight twenty twenty five
00:05:13.980 thirty you know we've finally gotten a majority of the majority to oppose u.s involvement in the war in
00:05:20.860 ukraine but that took some time again congress has the lagging indicator not the leading indicator and
00:05:27.080 so mark this as a moment where we really dedicate ourselves to the concept of having more america first
00:05:35.020 principles and values and people here in the united states congress working on the stuff that's
00:05:40.460 important to the american people uh there is uh there is a lot of enthusiasm for donald trump as a
00:05:47.340 potential speaker candidate so as many of you will remember i first nominated president trump for
00:05:53.600 speaker of the house back in january i'll give you a listen to that clip what purpose does the gentleman
00:06:00.280 from florida rise it's a place in name and nomination for the position of speaker of the house
00:06:04.320 the gentleman is recognized my friends when donald trump was president taxes were cut regulations were
00:06:12.920 slashed energy was abundant wages were rising capital was returning from overseas to fund the dreams and
00:06:21.320 ambitions of our fellow americans and the economy was roaring and so i nominate president trump because we
00:06:28.400 must make our country great again and he can start by making the house of representatives great again
00:06:33.040 so i gave that nominating speech and i can't say that the movement took off
00:06:39.660 president trump only got a very small handful of votes i think you know me and well it's mostly me
00:06:45.420 that was voting for president trump uh in those ballots and in those contests uh there have been
00:06:49.960 a few other of my colleagues troy nels notably greg steuby have said that they are eager to vote for
00:06:54.620 donald trump for speaker of the house i was with president trump last night in palm beach we talked about
00:07:00.340 this i can tell you straight from the horse's mouth president trump does not want the job he is laser
00:07:06.900 focused on 1600 pennsylvania avenue because he believes if we do not hold the white house
00:07:12.360 no matter which party controls the congress no matter who is the presiding officer we will not be able to
00:07:19.000 take the country back we will not be able to make the changes at the border in the economy and really in
00:07:24.040 just how our administrative agencies operate with congress alone we have to have the executive so he is
00:07:30.400 putting his time to best use toward that objective the only circumstance in which i think he ever
00:07:36.640 considered it or would consider it if there was an extremely short interim basis where he could come in
00:07:42.120 put us on the right track set a vision and an agenda uh i don't think that's the direction this is going
00:07:48.060 but uh i think that the president's focus is appropriately on uh the article two powers reflected
00:07:56.400 in the presidency president trump also endorsed congressman jim jordan for the position of speaker
00:08:01.140 of the house we showed you that in our last episode and we've got folks for a comment from
00:08:07.560 hello america news on the live stream devin nunez for speaker i would totally vote for devin nunez for
00:08:14.000 speaker um but let's get to jim jordan jim jordan uh a lot of enthusiasm for him in the base
00:08:20.160 you will recall back in january this was another play that i attempted to run i tried to nominate
00:08:27.160 jim jordan i believe in jim jordan here was my speech in january making the case for jordan for speaker
00:08:33.340 play the clip well sometimes we have to do jobs that we don't really want to do and sometimes we
00:08:41.480 have to do jobs that we are called to do and so my colleagues i rise to nominate the most talented
00:08:49.140 hardest working member of the republican conference who just gave a speech with more
00:08:55.000 vision than we have ever heard from the alternative i'm nominating jim jordan
00:08:58.780 i gave that speech right after jim jordan had nominated kevin mccarthy i was not successful
00:09:06.920 at getting jim jordan to vote for himself though i got a number of other members enthusiastic about
00:09:11.140 his candidacy then and i think there are people still pretty psyched about him to this day that said
00:09:16.460 yesterday we had a vote in the republican conference between steve scalise and jim jordan jim jordan lost
00:09:22.700 that vote by seven votes now we've heard a lot from a lot of people about the nature of that vote that
00:09:28.560 it was behind closed doors that it was anonymous people's names didn't necessarily have to append
00:09:33.320 to the vote that they were casting a very a very different thing than you saw back in january on the
00:09:40.160 floor with kevin mccarthy and that you'll see again with whoever we elect for speaker so why is that
00:09:45.120 happening a lot of people concerned about that methodology when i uh knew that the motion of
00:09:52.660 vacate was going to be successful based on the roll call votes vis-a-vis speaker mccarthy it was my
00:09:57.940 belief that immediately right then and there without taking a week off for everybody to go have a good
00:10:03.380 cry without retreating to our respective conferences i thought right then and there we should have begun
00:10:08.940 with nominating speeches and votes and you know what it would have been messy and it would have taken a
00:10:14.240 while but it probably would have been done by now instead they wanted to reschool the fish reconstitute
00:10:21.580 the caucuses and what i have to tell you is that decision is not one that i got to make not one even
00:10:27.920 that the majority of the body got to make that decision rested with the pro tem and the pro tem alone now
00:10:34.220 this is not an elected position not even a position you can vacate it was a position that was appointed by
00:10:40.700 the outgoing speaker this is a weird quirk of how the parliamentary process works the outgoing speaker
00:10:48.140 has a list of who would serve in the in the event of their incapacity in this case by vote but
00:10:53.740 there could be incapacity for all other reasons and the person designated was patrick mchenry
00:10:58.720 he made the decision to send everybody home for a week that was a bad decision and then the decision of
00:11:04.840 the conference chair elise stefanik in coordination with patrick mchenry is to engage the process that
00:11:09.600 usually we do at the beginning of the year where people cast their votes then when someone has
00:11:14.180 received 50 plus one they're officially the designated candidate of the party and we move to the floor
00:11:20.300 as a consequence of that so jordan loses and then the question is is jordan going to mount a campaign
00:11:27.420 on the floor similar to what we saw with mccarthy back in january or is he going to back scalise and we've
00:11:35.180 got some reporting on that i want to share with you first from jake sherman at punch bowl jake sherman
00:11:40.640 tweets news jim jordan just offered to nominate scalise on the house floor jordan getting behind
00:11:47.300 scalise that reporting confirmed by olivia beavers at politico olivia tweeting rep jordan plans to vote
00:11:54.500 for scalise as speaker on the floor and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same per source with direct
00:12:00.660 knowledge one thing that i have experience in is being more for jim jordan than jim jordan was for
00:12:09.020 jim jordan and one thing i've learned is that if it is challenging at times to get jim jordan over the
00:12:17.380 line if jim is not for jim i say that to you because i voted for jim jordan in that conference i did not vote
00:12:24.720 for steve scalise jim was my preferred candidate and while both jim jordan and steve scalise represent
00:12:31.520 an upgrade over kevin mccarthy i do believe jim would have been the better choice now jordan is
00:12:37.640 nominating scalise and backing scalise and working to whip votes for scalise so that brings us to scalise
00:12:43.160 let's talk about his his candidacy and and who can think about steve scalise without remembering
00:12:49.560 uh the tragic moment where he was shot on a baseball field by a radicalized bernie sanders
00:12:55.660 supporter play that clip washington correspondence that the president and the vice president have now
00:13:03.320 been informed of what have happened and you can see here what looks like that looks like a member
00:13:10.320 of congress that i recognize but we'll wait for confirmation we do have it nor we've told that
00:13:14.940 the congressman who was shot in the hip has been identified as steve scalise he is the republican
00:13:20.160 house majority whip and as you can see there it appears that they are uh medevac-ing him the
00:13:27.620 alexandria fire department and first responders are medevac-ing him to get treatment and the shooting
00:13:34.680 happened in the dugout of the baseball field and as of this time we do not know even though we assume
00:13:40.140 he's in custody the name of the shooter and his motive or intent
00:13:43.820 we are back live pat on facebook giving me the comment that jordan is not trusted because jordan
00:13:52.500 did not vote to vacate mccarthy let me level with you politically eight republicans voted with me
00:13:59.080 including my own vote to vacate mccarthy none of those people have any chance of being elected speaker
00:14:05.520 of the house this term the bad blood with the other republicans not all of them but a sufficient
00:14:11.560 number of them would preclude uh myself andy biggs bob good uh tim birchett nancy mace uh matt
00:14:19.980 rosendale uh eli crane from really being considered speakers of the house even though several people
00:14:25.380 on that list would probably make a pretty good speaker of the house that is a political reality so
00:14:29.560 that's why um that would probably be a path that would not be productive for us to pursue i also
00:14:35.800 want to talk about the the bad blood between scalise and mccarthy that seems to have impacted this race
00:14:44.020 because while steve scalise won the original caucus vote by seven votes he does not to have 217 votes right
00:14:51.220 now he may get there he may not he does not have 217 votes right now and that is the magic number
00:14:57.380 it's not 218 because uh there's a vacancy because chris stewart of utah retired and the special
00:15:03.380 election hasn't filled that seat so that's the important math um but there are a few areas that
00:15:08.200 really contributed to the bad blood between mccarthy and scalise that may be uh affecting
00:15:13.340 scalise's vote talent or tally right now first is the debt limit when kevin mccarthy went to negotiate
00:15:19.400 the debt limit with the white house typically that negotiating team would be led by or at least
00:15:25.980 heavily informed by whoever the majority leader is the number two in the house but instead of
00:15:30.980 involving steve scalise in the debt limit deal which i i assume almost everybody watching this
00:15:37.240 program and getting this report would be against i was viscerally against that deal steve had no role
00:15:43.180 in negotiating it he was cut out and it really he was replaced by louisiana congressman garrett graves
00:15:48.820 and north carolina congressman patrick mckenry who's now the pro tem uh the second thing that
00:15:54.020 contributed to this i think bad blood between mccarthy and scalise was the way that mccarthy
00:16:00.720 negotiated the continuing resolution scalise was cut out of that and then finally we heard reports of
00:16:07.100 a secret side deal between mccarthy and the white house on ukraine and scalise was cut out of that as
00:16:14.420 well and so this may be creating a rub where some of the remnants of mccarthy world are simply unwilling
00:16:21.940 to deliver their votes to scalise because they know of the drama or tension that existed between
00:16:28.200 mccarthy and scalise during a lot of the time when they were both members of the leadership team
00:16:32.740 now on ukraine specifically i've gotten a lot of comments about this because i do not support more
00:16:38.960 funding for the war in ukraine i was one of i think three four members who from the beginning has
00:16:45.740 opposed this and both jordan and scalise were asked their perspectives on ukraine and they gave the
00:16:51.020 exact same answer even though they have a very different voting record and i align with jordan's
00:16:55.400 votes of course uh they both said that the white house hadn't produced a plan that a majority of
00:17:00.320 republicans were against continuing to fund this and they were both pretty negative on it now
00:17:05.500 circumstances change got to evaluate people not just by what they say but how they vote that's how all
00:17:10.760 of us get evaluated but i wanted to bring you to that point because how people are thinking about
00:17:15.980 ukraine is informing a lot about how folks think about the direction of the house and how it should
00:17:20.880 be led and there are equally strong you know passions on both sides of that i mean we have some members who
00:17:27.520 will not vote for somebody that doesn't want to have an america last policy and send every last dollar
00:17:31.620 to ukraine and there are some of us who have a real hard time ever pulling the lever for someone who
00:17:36.740 thinks that this is going to be america's new costly forever war with high risk of escalation accident
00:17:42.360 and you know sleepwalking us into world war three um that's ukraine so now we're in a circumstance we
00:17:49.020 just got out of a meeting with the republican conference where scalise asked those who opposed him to come
00:17:55.920 forward share their concerns he was talking through those concerns with them and i didn't see a lot of votes
00:18:02.120 move during that particular meeting and so you know then the question becomes what happens if
00:18:08.260 neither one of these guys can get the votes what happens if some of the jordan people even if jordan
00:18:12.700 even though jordan uh apparently has said he's going to nominate scalise is whipping votes for scalise
00:18:17.740 even though that's happening there may be jordan people that don't want to vote for scalise
00:18:21.220 there may be scalise people that don't want to vote for jordan if that were to come to an impasse
00:18:26.900 and i hope it would i would actually hope that it wouldn't come to an impasse you could see a move
00:18:33.660 by the current number three in the house the whip tom emmer of minnesota and uh he's not a candidate
00:18:43.560 yet but if things were to dissolve with the two people that were running with the one person that
00:18:49.860 was designated it would be my expectation that tom emmer would mount a campaign alongside perhaps kevin
00:18:56.260 hearn a congressman from oklahoma who currently leads the republican study committee which is the
00:19:00.820 largest republican caucus in the united states conference so congress so we've got the speakers
00:19:06.800 race underneath that if scalise is ultimately elected speaker he will vacate the position of
00:19:11.720 majority leader several people have expressed an interest in that including my friend and florida
00:19:16.880 colleague byron donalds and uh if oh emmer were to run for that it could even create a vacancy for
00:19:24.260 whip so a lot of moving parts this is part of the politics that really drives washington if you
00:19:29.980 watch the uh the television show house of cards what i think they get right in that dramatization of all
00:19:37.680 this is how much time and energy and effort and focus members of congress put into these leadership
00:19:42.840 elections it really is the alpha and omega for some of them and as i told you at the top of the program
00:19:48.000 not for me throughout all of these personalities and all these zero-sum machinations of power
00:19:53.960 the most important thing to me is that we put downward pressure on spending and we constrain
00:20:01.500 the biden government from doing the grave harm that they are doing to the american people right now
00:20:06.840 it's not about personalities it's about the plan and we cannot continue to underwrite joe biden's debt
00:20:12.760 advance his spending that is crushing people through inflation all alongside the nancy pelosi mitch
00:20:19.800 mcconnell negotiated policies that i want to rip out of united states federal code and the only way to
00:20:26.740 do that is single subject spending bills and i'm fighting real hard for that no matter who ends up in
00:20:32.240 what leadership position but my commitment to you is i'll keep you informed i'll keep you up to date
00:20:36.220 i'll let you know you deserve to know not just what my perspective is again i went in and voted for
00:20:41.480 jordan some folks don't like that on the lines live stream some folks really do like that but what you
00:20:47.100 deserve to know is how the case is being made and what it means for you and the power centers here in
00:20:54.780 washington if certain coalitions advance or dissolve or able to constitute a functioning majority in the
00:21:02.520 united states house of representatives been a whole lot of whining about oh well you know mccarthy's
00:21:08.280 gone oh the house is in chaos we don't have a functioning legislative branch of government
00:21:14.220 spare me the breathless pearl clutching we had been failing for nine months under kevin mccarthy
00:21:21.160 no budget no release of the january 6 tapes no subpoena to hunter biden we didn't have a functioning
00:21:27.720 house of representatives when we did have a speaker so it is worth it to rip off the band-aid to get
00:21:33.620 this right and to put ourselves in a position where we have a leader who can inspire and who the
00:21:40.380 republicans in our conference can trust and i know that means we got republicans from east coast west
00:21:45.400 coast rural urban suburban everything in between but i i know that for us to be able to drive action
00:21:53.860 we have got to have more boldness in the speaker and we've got to surround them with a team that is
00:22:00.020 willing to go to battle against the biden administration and the chuck schumer led senate i also
00:22:06.080 want to update you on some important work that's going on at the committee level in the congress just
00:22:11.980 today and keep in mind even though there is this leadership drama that overlays the the beltway
00:22:18.980 there's also a lot of committee work going on to see that we're doing what the american people need
00:22:24.820 on oversight on legislation and one of the things that you should all be worried about is the level
00:22:31.180 of crime in dc i used to love it when in 2017 2018 i'd learn that northwest floridians would come to
00:22:39.760 our nation's capital and i'd be so eager to set them up oh you got to go to the washington monument and
00:22:45.160 the jefferson memorial and got to go to the spy museum and park the car walk around use public
00:22:50.860 transportation and in the years that have passed our subway system has become dangerous our beautiful
00:22:57.740 monuments have become camping grounds for the homeless and you know i'm not blaming the homeless
00:23:04.800 but you can't have a situation where our fellow americans cannot enjoy our nation's monuments and our
00:23:10.580 history and our national story because people are deciding to turn it into their residence
00:23:14.860 that is not okay for the rest of us and most notably crime we are seeing crime levels just
00:23:23.440 absolutely skyrocket in our nation's capital we had a hearing on it in the house judiciary committee
00:23:28.160 and this was some of the content that we reviewed play the clip
00:23:32.080 2023 is going to have to be one of the deadliest dc has seen in decades
00:23:38.440 there have now been 200 homicides so far this year in the district
00:23:43.860 the district is in a state of emergency due to the high crime rate so far in 2023 12 children have
00:23:51.440 been shot and killed the murder rate in the district of columbia is skyrocketing crime on dc public transit
00:23:57.920 has jumped to horrific rate all crime up 25 percent murder up 24 percent motor vehicle theft up 107 percent
00:24:05.920 a violent weekend unfolding in the district 2023 is now the third year in a row where dc has reached 200
00:24:12.780 homicides police are investigating a series of shootings that includes a mass shooting 16 year old
00:24:18.120 shot and killed and then bullets went flying into two classrooms eight people shot and killed in the
00:24:23.960 district in just 70 the triple shooting in shaw two women are dead and a teenage girl is in the
00:24:29.760 hospital some neighborhoods have seen homicides increase 280 the vast majority of them are just fine
00:24:37.280 we have to do better and there are federal equities and i want to make sure that when all of you come
00:24:46.260 here to be with us that you can be safe with your families and that you can be proud of your country and
00:24:51.640 your capital and our great national story i've got to say one of the benefits of this episode everyone
00:24:57.220 is chiming in on the live stream with their favorite um dark horse off the wall candidates for speaker we
00:25:03.260 are devin nunez earlier cash patel a lot of love for cash patel on the rumble thread former new york
00:25:09.460 congressman and new york gubernatorial candidate lee zeldin getting some love i saw on youtube someone
00:25:16.000 mentioned trey gowdy i would definitely be opposed to trey gowdy a speaker i thought that
00:25:21.460 he was uh he was all hat no cattle when it came to oversight and accountability and and wannimal
00:25:27.520 says just put me in charge so i don't know maybe you think you can be speaker and you're on the live
00:25:34.500 stream either way i'll keep you posted make sure you're subscribed do us a favor give us five stars
00:25:39.940 if you're listening on apple or on spotify that gives us the best opportunity to be able to share
00:25:45.540 this content keep people engaged and informed if there is any way my efforts to change this town
00:25:51.440 will be successful is because people like you will share this content engage our fellow americans and
00:25:57.120 then take action to demand better i'll keep you updated make sure you're subscribed roll the credits
00:26:02.820 new york
00:26:27.660 You